Shattered
by ally.enchantress
Summary: Songfic. Olivia reflects on what the hell is wrong with her as she sees it . Rated T for an unknown reason. R&R PLEASE!


**_I heard the song on the radio.....oh, I don't even know how many times, and it got to the point where it was almost painful not to write it. No, there's not much dialogue. Yes, it's mostly thoughts and opinions. No, it doesn't come out and scream OE, but I don't think it openly denies it either. There you go: I'm trying a new angle, which is ridiculous to say considering this is my first SVU fanfic._**

**_Disclaimer: Fortunately, Dick Wolf owns everything SVU. I humbly accept his offer to mess with his characters before returning them, theoretically unscathed, in time for Tuesday nights!_**

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Olivia watched the path of the leaf as it fell to the ground. It was the sixteenth leaf that had fallen in the past sixteen minutes. She knew which tree it had fallen from, where its host tree was standing, how many steps from that tree it was to the sidewalk, and that she had been sitting by her window watching the leaves fall since she'd woken from a nightmare and not been able to get back to sleep. She wondered if anything would get rid of her stupid weakness. Was it this place? Was it her stupid mind? Was it her impossible inability to get over it? It would probably help to get out of New York for a while, but how could she do that? Everything that had kept her sane was here. Casey, Fin, Munch, Cragen, and Elliot. Why was it Elliot who was holding her together? He didn't have anything to do with her infuriating disability. And yet, something about how important he was to her affected her survival. Leaving New York would mean leaving Elliot, and that was absolutely impossible. She wouldn't last one day without Elliot. And she knew that.

**In a way I need a change from this burnout scene  
****Another time, another town, another everything  
****But it's always back to you**

She didn't know if she liked it that her sanity and life were tied to Elliot. Surely her life could be better. But if it could have been different, she would never know now. It was too late to change anything, because if she tried she would fail. And she already knew that. Maybe she needed something to be different, but it was clear that her need would not be satisfied, because her stupid heart wouldn't let her leave.

**Stumble out in the night from the pouring rain  
****Made the block, sat and thought, "There's more I need"  
****It's always back to you**

But she _was_ surviving. Right now. He wasn't here, but it wasn't like she'd died as soon as he was out of sight.

**But I'm good without ya  
****Yeah, I'm good without you  
****Yeah, yeah, yeah**

Because her cell phone was sitting not two feet away, and she knew without a doubt that as soon as she picked it up and selected his number that he would answer. If she told him she wanted to talk, he would come. She wasn't really surviving without him, because her phone, which tied her to him when he wasn't within sight, was never far from her side, like him.

Her stupid need for him to understand, not what had happened but why he couldn't know what happened, was irresistibly overpowering the need to find something that would make her heal. She'd tried, multiple times, to get far enough away from anything connecting her to him that she would be convinced she didn't need him, but her heart was too stubborn for change. One of the pieces yanked her back at each attempt. Sometimes it was one of the ones that had broken for a victim, or the one that had nearly burned into ashes when the freak had a gun to Elliot's head. Other times it was the one missing Alex, Casey, or Lake. The piece that was drowning in gratitude to Fin. The piece that Merritt Rook had held under a knife. The piece that wanted to help Mia. The piece that she had been ready to cut from her body and crush between her hands when she'd found Elliot bleeding on the street. And, of course, the one Harris had ripped from her possession six months ago. Maybe that was why she couldn't leave. Her whole life had happened here. Everything about her was set here. Her heart had been dissected, the pieces left unhealed, here, and a piece still remained out of her grasp. Maybe that was why, no matter how she tried to get out of here and do something else, she couldn't.

**How many times can I break till I shatter?  
****Over the line, can't define what I'm after  
****I always turn the car around**

The only reason she had decided to try therapy was the hope that she would heal in time. But time was passing, and she wasn't healing. It wasn't getting better, true, but she still saw _his_ face in her nightmares. She still slept on her couch every night, still turned the TV on at two in the morning because she couldn't get back to sleep, still saw herself in every victim. Maybe she was too hopelessly broken to heal. The therapy wasn't addressing the whole problem, but how could it? Nobody knew what it was like to be her. Nobody understood how it felt to hold a friend who was bleeding from a gunshot fired by someone she'd tried to jail, or what your heart felt like when it pounded against your ribcage in true and unlimited terror, what it was like to sit strapped to a supposed electric chair and wait for Elliot to find you, what went through your mind when you broke down a door to find a girl you'd tried to protect with a butcher knife in her chest, the warm and wetness of your partner's blood when it flowed through your fingers that were trying to hold it back. No one knew what that was like. After all, how could they? They weren't her.

**Give me a break, let me make my own pattern  
****All that it takes is some time but I'm shattered  
****I always turn the car around**

Oh, seventeen leaves now. Had only a minute passed since the last leaf? It felt like an hour to her. What time was it? Four thirty. If she drove slowly, maybe it wasn't too early to go to work. Back to paperwork, back to victims, back to her family. Back to Elliot. He wouldn't be there for an hour, surely. She would have some time to herself, as it usually turned out.

**Had no idea that the night would take so damn long  
****Took it out on the street while the rain still falls  
****Push me back to you**

Ten minutes later, she was heading for downtown. Her phone was in the passenger seat, again not far from her. She was trying. She was trying so hard. But sometimes she wondered if she was just being stupid. Trying wasn't good enough. She had to be healed, not try to heal. Trying to be normal didn't work when everything that made a person normal didn't belong to you.

**Give it up, give it up, baby  
****Give it up, give it up, now  
****Now**

Now at the precinct, she sat down and waited for the rest of the squad to get there. Generally, she used this time to her advantage, composing herself and mentally burning the most recent nightmare. About ten minutes before Cragen arrived, she would start working to appear normal. As she rested her chin on her hands, she felt a tear trickle down her cheek. Her hands collapsed onto the desk and her head fell straight into the pocket made by her arms, and she started to cry silently. Shoulders shaking, she watched helplessly as every suppressed image that defined a piece of her crippled heart flashed in her mind's eye.

**How many times can I break till I shatter?  
****Over the line, can't define what I'm after  
****I always turn the car around.**

However long she wallowed in self-pity, it was long enough for some sense of intelligence to emerge again, telling her to toughen up and deal because her team would be coming in soon. So in the interests of appearing relatively calm, her fingers slid a piece of paper under her face. She started working, acutely aware of the tear tracks burning on her cheeks, and allowed her hair to fall over her shoulder and hide her red eyes.

The first person to find her at her desk was Fin, which was odd because Cragen usually arrived at least five minutes before anyone besides her. She knew he knew something was wrong, because he had taken two steps into the precinct before the footsteps abruptly stopped and she felt his eyes boring into her back. Ignoring him didn't seem like the most intelligent policy, but it was the one she felt most comfortable and proceeded to utilize, not turning around even when he continued on to his desk and trained his eyes on her.

Munch and Elliot came in one by one, Munch first and Elliot last. She neither greeted nor acknowledged either of their presences, instead opting to fix her eyes on her paper and continue writing. Munch, understanding to an extent that she wanted to be left alone, accosted Fin on the subject of her status instead. Elliot, however, had to be the one sitting across from her. She wondered how his gaze had not burned a hole in the top of her head yet. Knowing that he wanted to know what was wrong was hard, mostly because she also knew that she wouldn't tell him. She always found an excuse for him so that she could avoid the probably inevitable conversation that would undoubtedly end with him acting like a guard dog and practically vibrating with anger. That was a discussion she wanted to postpone for as long as possible, and she had so far succeeded, telling herself that she would enlighten him when she was ready, that she just needed more time to figure out how she was going to do it.

Fin seemed to get a sense of what her silence stemmed from, and he attempted to distract her partner. He asked Munch why the Hudson was so exceptionally filthy, and Munch immediately embarked on a monologue about some conspiracy theory. Olivia closed her eyes for a minute, silently thanking him.

A phone rang. Munch answered. "Guys!" he called. "We've got a case!"

**All that I feel is the realness I'm faking  
****Taking my time but it's time that I'm wasting  
****Always turn the car around**

Fin had opted to go before Olivia could open her mouth, so she and Elliot had been forced to wait at the precinct until they returned with pictures and descriptions. The girl was fifteen, white, and had reminded Munch of a porcelain doll. Looking at the photos, Olivia could see what he meant. If the girl had been lying in front of her, she would have been afraid that a wind would cause her to burst into pieces. Her heart went out to the family. What must it be like to lose a child like this?

**How many times can I break till I shatter?  
****Over the line, can't define what I'm after  
****I always turn the car around**

She glanced across at Elliot as they all tried to make sense of the ME's information. He was intent on the picture, probably finding how the girl looked like his Lizzie. She had to tell him at some point, she supposed, but not yet. She wasn't ready. Was she? It was like she was driving towards the city limits again, preparing to leave but backing out at the last minute. Did she want to tell him? No. Maybe that was another reason why she couldn't leave. Deep down inside, she knew she didn't want to.

**Don't wanna turn that car around  
****I gotta turn this thing around**

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**_Personally, I love it. If there are spelling or grammar or punctuation errors, I'm sorry. I couldn't find them. Love it? Hate it? Reviews are like chocolate: you can't live without them!_**


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